Gossip Girl: Enough About Eve
Enough about Eve opens with a lovely homage to All About Eve and Blair waking up screaming to the notion of being the Betty Davis to Vanessa’s Anne Baxter. It seems there is an all important parents dinner at NYU and B. wants to be the one to give the speech, but Vanessa is the activist du jour on campus and stealing her spotlight. Of course her focus on Vanessa distracts Blair from her biggest threat: Olivia (Hillary Duff) the hot starlet that the college would love to use for publicity.
Vanessa initially believes she is going to be chosen to give the speech and goes so far as to invite her absentee parents to the shindig. Dan has asked Olivia to go with him as his date and meet his parents, which she is really excited about. So taking a page from Blair’s book the always perfect, moral and decent Vanessa convinces Dan to stay in and cook for Olivia instead. She also convinces Olivia that Dan’s parents think ill of the Hollywood set. I really can’t believe the writers of this show continue to suggest Vanessa has any sort of morals when here she lies to her best friend and her roommate in order to give a speech.
Meanwhile, Nate and Serena team up to try and get Carter out of his debt to the Buckley’s in a plot that made me remember that when she puts her mind to it NOBODY bests Serena (well accept maybe at poker). Nate plays Serena by getting her to bet Carter’s debt against photographic evidence of his cousin, the congressional hopeful, Trip with a bong. For maybe the first time ever I found myself saying “well played Nate” when it was revealed that the photo was faked. Serena realizes she’s been Nate’s pawn in the Archibald vs. Buckley battle and takes maters into her own hands by tipping off the Buckley family to the faked photo and settling Carter’s debt. Sadly, Carter doesn’t want her charity and coldly leaves her.
Vanessa’s mom show’s up and she’s totally played by the kickass Gina Torres of Angel and Firefly fame. Too bad she is such a raging PC hippie bitch that I could have almost felt sorry for Vanessa had she not been at her most evil this entire episode. Mrs. Abrhams is judgmental about everything, which explains where Vanessa gets it from. I found the ongoing criticism that education should be free and Vanessa shouldn’t be at a private school beyond infuriating, which was of course the point. This is Gossip Girl, somebody who rejects materialism must be painted as a villain somehow.
Blair managed to finally scheme her way into giving the speech by having Chuck seduce the guy deciding the speaker. I’m not a 100% clear on what exactly happened there, I think the guy had his own reasons for needing to kiss Chuck other than being attracted to him, but it either wasn’t explained well or I wasn’t paying attention. The main point of it was the Blair played Chuck, her supposed one true love and he won’t be forgiving or forgetting any time soon. Of course before Blair can give her speech Vanessa tricks her with the old get your rival to reveal their inner evil with a hidden microphone trick. Blair makes a major fool of herself at the event by giving everybody and earful of what a spoiled, self-centered brat she really is. In the end it is Olivia who gets to give the speech after all.